The SOMM Journal

June / July 2017

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64 { THE SOMM JOURNAL } JUNE/JULY 2017
{
somm camp preview
}
Thomas Fogarty's
Rapley Trail
Vineyard tops off
at 1,650 feet, well
above the fog line.
ISLANDS
There is no better way to learn
about a wine region than to spend three
days immersed in its vineyards, from sun-
up to sundown. This is a report previewing
what a small contingent of sommeliers will
experience at the Santa Cruz Mountains
Somm Camp, which took place at the end
of April and will be recapped in the August-
September issue of The Somm Journal.
Santa Cruz Mountains is not a walk
in a park. You can get lost in its densely
wooded glens and dark ravines, from
scraggly ridgetops down to bucolic sand
dunes. Megan Metz—Executive Director
of the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers
Association, which is co-sponsoring this
Camp with The Somm Journal—likes to
describe this AVA as "islands in the sky"—
remote mountain vineyards, floating atop
wispy banks of fog.
Proximity to the Pacific Ocean gives
many of the appellation's vineyards their
moderate climate, falling on the cool side.
Ridge's famed Monte Bello Vineyard is here,
perched on slopes 1,300 to 2,700 feet
in elevation. So is Mount Eden Vineyard,
founded on still another mountaintop (lest
you forget the physical reality behind the
name) in 1945 by the famously cantanker
-
ous Martin Ray. It is easy to forget that this is
where the concept of handcrafted, minimal
intervention California Cabernet Sauvignon
and Chardonnay was born, artisanal wine
-